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Skinless Longganisa

Skinless Longganisa with a delicious medley of sweet, savory, and garlicky flavors you’ll love. Serve these Filipino pork sausages with garlic fried rice and sunny side eggs for a hearty and tasty breakfast meal!

Skinless Longganisa

My daughter is coming down from Northern California this weekend to visit, so I thought I would prepare her favorite skinless longganisa and have a few packs ready for her to bring back home.

Unfortunately, she didn’t take after me the love for cooking, and now that she lives miles away, she mostly dines out or orders in. I am sure having these Filipino sausages in the freezer will come in handy when she’s craving a quick and easy home-cooked meal.

And since I was making them anyway, I thought I might as well take a few in-process photos and update this post I first published in 2013. I hope you find the tips helpful.

What is Skinless Longganisa?

Skinless longganisa is a version of the native Filipino sausage usually made of ground pork, garlic, and spices. However, instead of stuffing into hog casings, the pork mixture is wrapped in wax paper or plastic film to maintain shape.

Its taste is mostly sweet and garlicky like hamonado but “hot” varieties are also common with added copious amounts of ground pepper.

How Do You Make Skinless Longganisa

Skinless longganisa are so easy to make, you’ll have a big batch ready in a cinch. It’s just a matter of mixing the ground pork, minced garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, salt, and pepper in a bowl until fully incorporated.

Good sausage needs fat as well as lean meat for flavor and juiciness. You can add 1/2 pound of ground pork fat to 1 1/2 pounds of lean ground pork or you can’t find pork fat, use 2 pounds of ground pork with good fat marbling.

I don’t usually use extenders or binders such as flour or breadcrumbs, but I recently learned a “magic” ingredient that keeps the longanisa super moist and tender and that is corn starch! Dissolve the 2 tablespoons of corn starch in 3 to 4 tablespoons water and add to the pork. Chill the meat mixture for about 30 minutes before shaping and wrapping. The corn starch slurry will act as a tenderizer, much like in velveting, and will keep the sausages soft and juicy.

Want variety? Swap ground chicken or ground beef for the pork!

The most time-consuming part of the preparation, in my opinion, is shaping the pork sausage into thin logs and wrapping in wax paper. Cut the paper in even lengths and use as a guideline when forming the longganisa for uniform sizes.

If you want to skip the tedious individual wrapping, spread the longanisa mixture into about a 1/2-inch thick layer on a sheet of wax paper, cut into sizes with a knife or a pizza cutter, and then place another wax paper sheet on top of the mixture to cover.

Arrange the wrapped sausages in resealable bags and they should keep in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 days or in the freezer for 1 to 2 months. I suggest labeling the bag or container with the packing date so you’ll know until when they’ll be good for.

How to Cook Longganisa

You can thaw the pork longganisa for a few hours or cook frozen.

Peel the wrapper and in a wide pan, arrange the sausage in a single layer. Add about 1/2 cup of water to cover them halfway.

Over medium heat, bring to simmer and cover. Cook until most of the liquid is reduced and pork is cooked through.

Add about 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil and continue to cook, uncovered and stirring regularly, until lightly browned and caramelized.

Serve these sweet sausages with garlic fried rice and sunny side up eggs for a classic Filipino breakfast called Longsilog.

I love this hearty meal with a side of chopped tomatoes for a pop of fresh flavor but spiced vinegar dip is also a traditional accompaniment. My pickled atchara will be delicious here, too!

Skinless Longganisa

Skinless Longganisa with a delicious medley of sweet, savory, and garlicky flavors you'll love. Serve these Filipino pork sausages with garlic fried rice and sunny side eggs for a hearty and tasty breakfast meal!

Hi! Thank you for sharing this recipe. I already tried some longganisa recipe in other sites and those recipes can’t satisfy my tastes. Hopefully your recipe is the one that i’ve been looking for. I already tried the recipe of your baked macaroons and it was so delicious, i’m sure that this recipe is also 100% delicious. I’ll give it a try soon and hopefully i could post it here.

I am sorry I haven’t been posting regularly. I was in the middle of launching another blog and I was kind of over my head with the work involved. I do have a few recipes I will be posting so I hope you check them out 🙂

Keep it frozen for food safety. Hindi kasi ako familiar with commercial food processing; ang best source of information is contact ang mga small business administration sa atin. I am sure they have materials to help you out.

Made this for my parents and grandma and they liked it. I reduced the sugar, salt, and amount of added fat, but my pork longganisa still came out very tasty. Thank you for this recipe! I’ll be making these now instead of buying longganisa from the supermarket.

This tastes almost exactly how mom makes it! Found this site while searching for the proportions cause my mom never writes a down her recipies! Thanks so much for sharing!

I’ve tried making this with ground turkey for health reasons and for those of you wondering, you can use either ground chicken or turkey, but it will change the consistency and texture. Also due to the leanness and texture I of poultry, you might have issues with the sausage keeping its shape if you don’t freeze it first before frying. Otherwise don’t be shy about using a good cut of fattier pork like pork shoulder for good flavor or likewise you can mix half and half ground turkey and pork for something in between.

Hi Lalaine,
A question about freezing skinless sausages…do they retain their firmness when you freeze them, or does freezing make them more likely to crumble and fall apart when you cook them?
Also, I like my sausages a bit more ‘chunky’, rather than very finely minced – do ‘chunky’ sausages retain their firmness as well as finely minced sausages?
Many thanks!

It should be ok for a few months. Usually, depending on the temperature of your freezer, meat last for 6 months. That is if consistent yung temperature sa freezer at hindi bukas sara which can drop the temp.

Thanks, Carol, for the feedback. Skinless longanisa is really easy to make and keeps well in the freezer for months, too. I like making a big batch and storing them for days I want a quick, yummy breakfast. 🙂

super thanks for this recipe!!! i finally decided to try this one yesterday, after bookmarking it when I first saw it and SUCCESS!!! even my office colleague loved it! I have shared your recipe & website to her (hope you don’t mind)… Your site is my go-to for recipes or when I’m in the mood for cooking. Been planning to do this as baon-breakfast for my kids. Thanks to you, I saved some of my grocery budget following your recipe — I realized it’s so easy and I can actually control the ingredients added (no preservatives and less sugar), compared to the commercial ones.

Thanks for sharing your recipe, I have a question about preparing the ingredients. I followed all the steps but Iit always gives me same result, lagi kasi nadudurog ang longganisa when I’m prying it. DId I missed something? What is usually the cause of this? Need for your advise. My Kids really love its taste but I’m not happy with how I cook it.
Thank you

Make sure to freeze the longganisa after you make the logs. Make sure very firm pa siya when you fry para hindi madurog. Thaw only just enough to peel the wax paper na balot. Occasionally, I add a little bit of water sa pan (about half a cup) at pabayaan maluto ang pork sa low heat. Pag naabsorb ang water at luto na ang sausage, add a little bit of oil and continue to cook for a few more minutes until nagcaramelize na. Hope this helps.

Thanks for you quick response Lalaine, Actually yesterday I made some longganisa and hindi cya nadurog. I don’t know what happen today, I just added a few more flour and a little bit of oil. My kids said the size shrunk thats why I added more flour. Any idea?

It’s me again! I just cooked this today and loved it. My little one who is a picky eater loved it too. Thanks for sharing.
Since I had some sausage casing, I stuffed some them in there. I’ll try it tomorrow and see how it goes.

I use the “fat” part of any cut of pork, usually “butt” part has thick strips of fat attached. You can always just use regular ground pork for the recipe. Thanks for the visit, I am glad to answer your cooking questions 🙂